Here's latest picture from this past weekend (4/30/2016) with the laminate on.

Before painting.

ProjectSo I'm planning to build a Donkey Kong cabinet with MAME running on RPi. I would like the cabinet to look as authentic as possible. However, I'll still use an LCD for convenience. Also, I'm planning to have a DK control panel and then another that is more generic to handle games like Robotron. Finally, I'm considering doing two builds at the same time with the other being either a DKJr or Mario. Doing a Mario would be cheaper since its the same paint color but DKJr orange would look nice. Not sure the wife can put it up two builds though.

[Update] Wife will not put up with two builds right now.

My first steps so far:1. Reading ChanceKJ's sticky, johnrt's build, and many other threads. I am pleasantly surprised by all the info out there for doing this.2. I've ordered the marquee, bezel, and brackets from http://MikesArcade.com. I don't want to start building anything until I know these things are going fit.3. I've contacted http://www.plonkagames.co.uk/ for coin doors. Frank promised to set two aside when the next allotment comes in (~8 days).[Update] Frank from plonkagames has shipped the replica coin door. With shipping to US its about $125 US.4. I've traced a real DK cabinet onto a plastic template. http://www.homedepot.com/p/1-16-in-x-4-ft-x-8-ft-Plastic-Panel-63003/2020901905. Printed Gaetan's Coupe (1.1) drawing at FedEx Office on their plotter. It was $13. I laid down the plastic template from #3 on top of this and it matches up very well. I'm going to use the Gaetan plans instead since it has more detail. Also, I found the Jakobud template had several issues. For example, the heights on the right side of the drawing don't add up to match left side.

I found that a local lumber yard carries plenty of 5/8 plywood (grade A/B) with an actual width of 9/16ths. So this is perfect! I've seen a few threads were folks limited themselves to what Home Depot has which doesn't carry 5/8ths MDF or plywood. I'm not sure they considered a local lumber yard.

I decided to install battons to avoid having to screw the panels/shelves from the side of the cabinet. I want to avoid having to use bondo.

So far, installing the battons has been the most time consuming part of this build. Its mainly because I need the battons to be installed in the exactly the same places on both sides and I want everything to fit together nicely. So this means making sure the corners are all square, etc.

I went to Home Depot and didn't find a whole lot of options for battons. I decided to buy 3/4" square dowels that are 36" in length. This saves time as I don't have create battons by ripping larger pieces on the table saw.

I made a simple jig to make sure the battons are installed exactly where they need to be. I made sure to pre-drill the holes so the battons don't move when I screw them down.

I added an extra 5/8" to the jig for the top panel.

I made sure to double check measurements and that all of the battons were square as I installed them.

Here is one side that is almost complete.

Hopefully, I'll have some time this week to install the rest of the battons. Also, this weekend I'm planning to start installing the panels/shelves, etc. Once I dry fit everything then I'll take it all apart for painting.

I did a test fit of all the art work, etc. and it fits! This was the first time I actually tested this. I had pre-measured the Gaetan plans before and never looked back after that. Note, that I did end up buying a $14 sheet of 3/8th plywood for the bottom shelf of the marquee so that I didn't have to do any special routing or cutting for the lower marquee hardware bracket.

That's turning out nice, will be difficult to tell it from the real thing from the pics, unless you take a distractive turn from here on out (that will be what people will see) .... It may be overkill, but I buy the wood almost a year before I actually build to get a good cure, (I think they did that with wagon wheels too) but It does give a nice predictable flow to a build however, especially with somewhat sappy like maple....again good job.

I would rather laminate but don't have any contacts for acquiring the laminate. I was looking at Nevemar Carribean Blue laminate (https://panolam.com/chip/1173). However, not sure how close this color is to DK blue. Anybody have any suggestions here? If this doesn't pan out then I'm going to paint it.

That's turning out nice, will be difficult to tell it from the real thing from the pics, unless you take a distractive turn from here on out (that will be what people will see) .... It may be overkill, but I buy the wood almost a year before I actually build to get a good cure, (I think they did that with wagon wheels too) but It does give a nice predictable flow to a build however, especially with somewhat sappy like maple....again good job.

Thanks! So far I've been able to stay very close to the plans including plywood thickness. Also, the replica coin door from Plonka is on its way. I'm getting to the point where I might just buy a Sanyo 20" CRT and board, etc.

That's dedication to let your wood sit for a year. I chose to let my wood cure in the shape of a DK cabinet.

I would rather laminate but don't have any contacts for acquiring the laminate. I was looking at Nevemar Carribean Blue laminate (https://panolam.com/chip/1173). However, not sure how close this color is to DK blue. Anybody have any suggestions here? If this doesn't pan out then I'm going to paint it.

I would rather laminate but don't have any contacts for acquiring the laminate. I was looking at Nevemar Carribean Blue laminate (https://panolam.com/chip/1173). However, not sure how close this color is to DK blue. Anybody have any suggestions here? If this doesn't pan out then I'm going to paint it.

There was a gentleman on KLOV that has used the Caribbean blue on his DK restore. He says that the swatch has texture but the actually sheet you order is much more smooth. Not perfectly smooth, but apparently "smooth enough". As I understand it, The red swatch is the only color that comes in smooth. You could also call them to see if they offer the blue in smooth.

Here are some before and after shots of Hailrazer's restore. (from KLOV) I think one could get over slight texture differences given the overall results. Also, I think the texture is what helps to keep the surface from scuffing/marring/hazing as much over time. A perfectly smooth surface would be much more scratch-prone.

Actually, the texture wouldn't look all that bad. I am mainly concerned about the side art appearing bumpy. However, I think I can just sand behind where the sticker will go. I think this is the solution I'll go with! Thanks!

Hopefully, I can order these sheets of laminate! Also, I'll have to buy a laminate trim router bit.

I was planning to buy the Nintendo Coin Door bolt set from MikesArcade.com for $10. However, they were out! Actually, that ended up being a good thing. After striking out at Home Depot, I found that Ace Hardware carries these bolts!

They are 3/8" carriage bolts and were labeled #10-24 1 1/4" inch. They had multiple lengths as well. I bought 11 of these for $1.32 and some nuts for another $1.20.

It fits the coin door perfectly!

The box contained a mix of bolts. Some had a smooth head and others with writing on them. I didn't realize this at first.

Also, Ace Hardware contained a wide assortment of black screws which Home Depot did not have any of. These will be useful for the upper marquee bracket.

Jenn would go back and get some more without the casting stamp on them.... If you polish those heads on those carriage bolts (I use neverdull and paper towel) you will scrub some black off there. This not only makes them sparkle, but puts a protective coating on the zinc witch helps inhibit rust, and lubricates the threads for easy disassembly someday. Quick and fast however, don't rub the plating off them....Should you be so inclined.

Jenn would go back and get some more without the casting stamp on them.... If you polish those heads on those carriage bolts (I use neverdull and paper towel) you will scrub some black off there. This not only makes them sparkle, but puts a protective coating on the zinc witch helps inhibit rust, and lubricates the threads for easy disassembly someday. Quick and fast however, don't rub the plating off them....Should you be so inclined.

Luckily, I figured this out before leaving the store. Good tip on Nevr-Dull. Maybe it can help clean the coin mech?

I just bought these 2 coin mechs off of e-bay. Any tips for how to clean these up?

Also, any advice for hooking these up into a I-PAC 2? Anything else special needed? Here's the side pic of one of them.

Finally, I won't have any time to work on DK this weekend. I'm expecting to get a lot done next weekend.

The plating is compromised, Depending on your budget and level of restore... Clean them with simple green /water, Or paint them, Or send them out to be plated, Or buy a simple home plating kit (eastwood has a nice entry level kit) and try it at home. To strip the plating (after disassembly of course and before paint or home kit) I would try a hydrochloric, or sodium hydroxide (caustic soda) as a remover as apposed to sanding, but that's just me. .... Most around here will most likely say spray paint I would venture to guess, a simple clean fast cheap approach, but suffers a bit in longevity.

Yep, Jenn is right. Those coin mechs have a special plating on them that has chipped off. If you are up for it, I'd sand them smooth and then rub them with some steel wool to get some of the luster back. I can't guarantee this will work, but I've done it with other metal parts with success. The steel wool at the end is what gives the shine back.

The plating is compromised, Depending on your budget and level of restore... Clean them with simple green /water, Or paint them, Or send them out to be plated, Or buy a simple home plating kit (eastwood has a nice entry level kit) and try it at home. To strip the plating (after disassembly of course and before paint or home kit) I would try a hydrochloric, or sodium hydroxide (caustic soda) as a remover as apposed to sanding, but that's just me. .... Most around here will most likely say spray paint I would venture to guess, a simple clean fast cheap approach, but suffers a bit in longevity.

Makes sense. It seems like re-plating is really the best option if I were to restore them.

Yep, Jenn is right. Those coin mechs have a special plating on them that has chipped off. If you are up for it, I'd sand them smooth and then rub them with some steel wool to get some of the luster back. I can't guarantee this will work, but I've done it with other metal parts with success. The steel wool at the end is what gives the shine back.

Worst case you can get some replacement faces at mikesarcade.com

Thanks! The face plates from mikesarcade.com are rather cheap. So this may be the best option. Although, I'm willing to experiment with these plates to see if I could restore them. The Eastwood kit sounds interesting.

I got the new coin mech face plates from mikesarcade.com. I found out from Tony, from mikesarcade, that the face plates come directly from Asahi Seiko and are not reproductions. Asahi Seiko doesn't sell the KWM-740 mechs anymore. So I'm wondering how many more of these face plates they'll have.

Stuff from ebay started coming in. I scored 3 joysticks that appear from Nintendo VS, which I hope I can make work, and 2 wiring harnesses. I also got some replacement parts from Mikes to fix up the joy sticks including a 4-way restrictor plate. I'll follow Nerdtendo's guide to cleaning up joysticks.

One of the joysticks was in really bad shape.

I cleaned it up a bit and removed all the rust that I could. It still needs some more work. Also, I'll no longer need the plastic parts. I'll use the DK style guards.

Also, I found a cheap monitor that works really well. I took the base off.

I got around to cutting the insert for the control panel. I found the insert angle to be between 14-15 degrees using the Gaetan plans and some trig.

I set the angle of the table saw to ~15 degrees.

I marked where I needed to cut.

I ran multiple passes across the table saw.

Test fit using the speaker panel (flipped) to see if this kind of cut will work. This diverges from the original plans. I can always cut out more if this doesn't work well using an actual 5/8" dado setup.

Test fit in the cabinet. I'm hoping the panel should lift easily out of this insert since the profile of the back edge becomes smaller as you lift the front up. We'll see.

I was all trying to see your dado blade, and got all (then reread your post) That seems to be a good fit... That craftsman seems like a nice saw, and might consider getting one, I am using a cheap saw on my current project just to prove they are not crude and dangerous (subject of a "cheap saws suck" thread) but sold my good saw just as not to be tempted to cheat, and kind of miss it sometimes.... Btw Jennifer just LOVES those new coin plates!!

I got the idea from johnrt's build for using battons. Not only did I avoid having to use bondo but it made it easier to properly align the two sides.

I tried cutting my own for my build, but they didn't come out even at all. I saw you got nice looking square dowel rods at Home Depot, so I'll do the same (luckily I only glued a couple in place so far on the base, and I can probably pull them off). Thanks for posting about that.

I was all trying to see your dado blade, and got all (then reread your post) That seems to be a good fit... That craftsman seems like a nice saw, and might consider getting one, I am using a cheap saw on my current project just to prove they are not crude and dangerous (subject of a "cheap saws suck" thread) but sold my good saw just as not to be tempted to cheat, and kind of miss it sometimes.... Btw Jennifer just LOVES those new coin plates!!

I would have had to buy a dado for this and they are expensive. So decided to give this a try first. Also, this Craftsman table saw is not great but I'm able to make it work. I always have to use a triangle or T-square to make sure the guide is set correctly, blade is square to the table, etc. With nicer ones you don't have to do this.

Yeah, I'm loving the new coin mech face plates as well. It wouldn't have looked nearly as good if I tried to re-plate the old ones myself.

I tried cutting my own for my build, but they didn't come out even at all. I saw you got nice looking square dowel rods at Home Depot, so I'll do the same (luckily I only glued a couple in place so far on the base, and I can probably pull them off). Thanks for posting about that.

The square dowels worked out well. I did have to lay them out on the floor at Home Depot to make sure there was no warping in any of them. Generally, they were fairly straight.

Also, when cutting the dowels, I made sure to cut for both sides at the same time and used a jig to make sure they were offset exactly the same way. Of course this means your two sides need to perfectly match as well.

I cut the control panel board with a 15 degree bevel on back side. It fits great and lifts up with no problems. Also, I cut out the coin door but that was uninteresting. I marked off what I needed to cut out using measurements from the Gaetan plans. Then used drill and jig saw to cut out the coin door opening. Its a bit tight as the coin door fits snugly in the opening. I may need to widen it just a bit.

Finally, I've ordered the Nevamar Caribbean Blue S3070T laminate and it ships out on Monday. I may have it in time for next weekend. I've waited to cut the t-molding slots until the laminate is installed. I want to make sure the t-molding overlaps the laminate properly. Also, I haven't decided yet whether to cut the speaker opening before or after the laminate is installed. If I can do it after then I just need to route once but I need to get it right the first time.

Everything in the picture below is a dry fit. I haven't glued any of the battons down, etc. Also, planning to laminate the sides, and paint the interior black with it completely taken apart.

Although I can understand the reasoning behind disassembly before paint, However in practice its a bad idea, your joints become compromised as far as adhesion goes. FWIW plating kits can achieve such results, just dealing with caustic chems is all....That thing looks awesome, GREAT JOB!

Although I can understand the reasoning behind disassembly before paint, However in practice its a bad idea, your joints become compromised as far as adhesion goes. FWIW plating kits can achieve such results, just dealing with caustic chems is all....That thing looks awesome, GREAT JOB!

Thanks! Right now only battons are holding everything together and I have not applied any glue yet. I also minimized the number of screws that I have used as I'm completely counting on the glue for strength. So I'm not sure how any joints will be compromised.

I tried contacting a few local places in Oregon but none of them had the laminate or had access to it. So I ordered the laminate from https://topcabinethardware.com/ located in Florida. I called them up and talked to a guy named John and placed the order over the phone. He said they had some sheets of the Nevamar Caribbean Blue laminate in their warehouse and could ship it out right away.

It was still a bit too cold to laminate today. So I spent an hour on the control panel.

I cut out the holes, routed out a recess for the joystick, and routed the slot for the t-molding. I'll paint tonight and cut the rabbet tomorrow. I'll wait to cut the retainer slot until I have the cabinet back together. I want to make sure its in the right spot.

Of course I had to dry fit everything to make sure it works!

Here's one of the wiring harnesses that I picked up off of ebay. I'll have to clean it up a bit and find a clean way to hook it up to the I-Pac 2. Any suggestions?

Re: Sonic & Tails 2 player upright« Reply #3 on: March 14, 2014, 03:50:17 am »QuoteQuoteQuote from: nugarp on March 14, 2014, 02:11:51 amI couldn't (quickly) figure out how to insert images in the middle of the thread that I was also attaching at the same time.There's a stickied thread here for posting images.

Post your images there and link to them (not the thumbnails ) using the icon to insert the IMG tags in your post.

Lots of formerly well-documented builds are now almost worthless because someone rearranged/"cleaned up" their image folders . . . or had their account revoked . . . or the photo service went out of business . . . or exceeded their monthly traffic allowance . . . .

If the pics are vital to telling the story of your build, please host them here.

If you're posting 120 pictures that aren't vital to telling the story, those are probably better hosted elsewhere.

If you post your pics there, they are hosted on the BYOAC server, which guarantees that they will always be there. If the hoster you are using now keels over, your pictures will be gone, leaving us with an interesting thread without pics.

Nice work! Now you've got me pondering what I should do with my Nintendo cab. I've already bought the paint for Radarscope Red. But I'm REALLY considering the gloss red. Hmm.

Eager to see the rest. Get going on those stickers!

DeL

That's easy! I would go with a smooth Radarscope red laminate.

I'm planning to do the following this weekend:1. Wheels2. Speaker Holes3. Stickers (I'm looking for original placement of DK instruction sticker on bezel)4. Cleanup and install joystick.5. Install monitor

Re: Sonic & Tails 2 player upright« Reply #3 on: March 14, 2014, 03:50:17 am »QuoteQuoteQuote from: nugarp on March 14, 2014, 02:11:51 amI couldn't (quickly) figure out how to insert images in the middle of the thread that I was also attaching at the same time.There's a stickied thread here for posting images.

Post your images there and link to them (not the thumbnails ) using the icon to insert the IMG tags in your post.

Lots of formerly well-documented builds are now almost worthless because someone rearranged/"cleaned up" their image folders . . . or had their account revoked . . . or the photo service went out of business . . . or exceeded their monthly traffic allowance . . . .

If the pics are vital to telling the story of your build, please host them here.

If you're posting 120 pictures that aren't vital to telling the story, those are probably better hosted elsewhere.

Sounds good. I was assuming that imgur.com would be around longer than anything else since huge sites like reddit depend on that being up. However, I'll upload the original hi-res pics.

I'm back! Last year I started to route the speaker grill and used the Jackobud plans. The result did not look very pleasing. I tried to make adjustments to follow the Gaetan plans but ended up chipping the laminate! So I decided to put the project aside for a few weeks. Well weeks turned into months and the Donkey Kong has been sitting in my garage for over a year.

Today, I built another front speaker panel and laminated it with all the left over Donkey Kong blue laminate that I have. I'll route the speaker grill using the Gaetan plans tomorrow.

Also, I took an 8 week sabbatical at my work and I came back to this! This definitely provides some motivation to finish this thing!

I laminated a new piece to be used for the front speaker panel. I'm cutting an angle along the top edge so the control panel rests flat on it. For this I need to make sure the laminate is facing up or the table saw will tear it up.

This is the jig that I built for cutting the speaker slots. Here are some notes:

Added paper under the white panel pieces until it was flush with blue speaker panel.

Used 5/8th wooden spacers since I don't have any thing that's 16 mm thickness. So .625 instead of .6299 inches which is close enough.

Used 5/16th straight router bit which is half width of spacers.

Used blue painters tape to ensure spacers are pulled tight together. No need for clamps.

Was able to draw marks directly on laminate. Can wash this off after.

I ran multiple passes of the router to route the slots. I was very careful not to plunge in and chip the laminate. Also, I did not need any stops for lateral movement. It was easy enough to watch the router bit and make sure it doesn't go past my pencil marks.

All done routing the speaker grill!

I was able to use a magic eraser to wipe away the pencil marks.

Looks clean!

The back as well!

There are no noticeable chips to the laminate which was what I was most afraid of.

Seems a bit silly but I was having a hard time finding exactly where the coin sticker goes on the speaker panel.

There are lots of photos where its placed in various spots. I did see old barn finds where it was placed centered on the panel and was thinking this was likely the right spot. I began looking at old vintage arcade photos. I found one of Michael Jackson playing DK, etc. However, usually people were standing in front of the DK or the photo was of the screen and marquee area.

The following picture states its from an arcade room on the USS Enterprise in 1982 (National Archives). So from this it appears the sticker is centered on the panel like the old barn find pictures that I've seen.

I've decided to look into buying a CRT for this to make it more authentic.

Anyway, I'm a newb to arcade monitors and I found a 100 volt 19" Nintendo Monitor (Mitsubishi) for $80. All I know is that its possibly been in a double monitor cabinet such as Punch Out and that it still works. It has some slight burn-in but likely not noticeable behind the DK bezel.

What concerns should I have? Will this work? I'm planning to pick this up on Monday. I'm not sure how to deal with 100 volts yet or other hardware I need. I may still hook up to PC but I'm also looking to get an actual DK 2-board set as well.

I might be looking in the wrong places but I was having a hard time finding an iso transformer. New power supplies were easy to find though. I just lucked out today on Craigslist. Usually there's nothing on there.

I'm lost, why are you looking for a 100v ISO? you have a pair of them in that picture. Those Nintendo power supplies are all you'll need to power a 20EZ, that marque light, and whatever Nintendo boardset you want to put in the cab.

I'm lost, why are you looking for a 100v ISO? you have a pair of them in that picture. Those Nintendo power supplies are all you'll need to power a 20EZ, that marque light, and whatever Nintendo boardset you want to put in the cab.

Sorry, there was a conversation that was going on when I was actually looking for an 100v iso. During this conversation, I ended up finding the two in the picture. However, I'm still interested to know if there are modern 100v ISO transformers out there.

This is starting to become a restoration now. I've bought all of the cable harnesses for the TKG4 board such as video, sound, control panel, coin, etc. I also bought the bezel, brackets and bolts to mount the monitor. I could have saved money by making all the cable harnesses myself but "I ain't got time for that!" I'm hoping I get these before this weekend.

Also, I'll be adding all 5 carriage bolts on each side for mounting the monitor even though only 2 are used. Who knows... maybe someone will want to convert this cabinet some day and mount the monitor horizontally?

Originally, this was just going to be an RPi MAME build. So this past week, I've been undoing things such as removing battens in the back and routing out a 1/4" rabbet along the back sides to fit a normal size DK door.

Also, I wasn't planning to use any of the interior braces for the monitor or DK board from the Gaetan plans. So I had to build a template for these using the scale drawings that I printed last year. This template ensures that I install the panels supports exactly the same way on both sides of cabinet.

The legit look is thanks to the measurements and plans that you and Gaetan put together. Of course others have been helpful too for other parts of the cabinet. You should consider adding a link to Tighe's measurements for placing the DK side art from here: https://youtu.be/e91NybttYBg?t=3455 in your "So, You want to build a Classic Nintendo Cab?"

I have some questions about the DK PCB panel seen below in pic.

What is the width of the PCB panel? I have the length from the 1:1 scale drawings but not the width.

What are the dimensions for the PCB inserts? I can see from pics they are just strips of plywood.

I can see one PCB insert is on edge of panel. What's the distance from side of cabinet to first PCB insert?

I worked on the back of the DK cabinet today. I needed to cut a rabbet along the back sides in order to fit standard size DK door (23" x 50.5"). This would have been much easier to have done this when I had cut out the sides but I originally wasn't planning for any of this. I think in 30 years you may not be able to tell this is a reproduction.

This is the jig I used for rabbeting the back sides with a router.

Here is the back assembled. I just need to paint this all black.

Also, shout out to behrmr! He's shipping me a coin box with surround, speaker grill, coin counter, service button, etc. It should get here on Thursday. Thanks!!

I painted the back and inside with a flat black paint. This might not be a good move as it seems to get dirty really easy. I think I may get a satin and paint another coat. Also, I installed some finishes.

I printed out the non-compliance FCC sticker and installed serial plate from behrmr. I want eventually install one that has the TKG4 serial number from the DK board that I have.

I had a power-on party this weekend and we were able to hook up the DK pcb.

The first Sanyo monitor we tried appears to be dead. The fuses were good but nothing was showing up and no sound. This will need some debug.

The second Sanyo monitor needed new fuse. After fixing this then sound was working great but video was bad. We finally got the picture fairly stable but picture looked bad. It looks like monitor needs cap kit. See pic below.

The last monitor also had picture corruption that possibly a cap kit could help with.

Here's a picture of what the best image we were able to get. I should have turned off light above for pic.

Yes, absolutely. the plastic ones you have look too... "made in china modern mass produced".

Yeah, you're right. I'll work towards putting these in instead.

I started the process of taking the Sanyo boards out and recapping. Several folks use water to wash the entire monitor including the pcbs. I'm considering washing the pcbs. The rest of the monitor is clean enough where I don't want to risk anything.

I replaced a single cap. Now just 23 more to go along with 3 resistors!

I've recapped a monitor and it now has the dreaded vertical collapse problem.

I'm currently working through the logic in the Sanyo schematic that controls the vertical parameters for the monitor. I've replaced TR402, TR403, IC LA1464, and R216 that was blown up. Hopefully, this won't take too long to debug.

After testing caps, transistors and looking for broken traces (continuity tests), I then started testing all of the resistors and actually found a bad one at R473. Replacing this fixed the problem!

Now the monitor seems ok but now I'm not getting anything from DK board.

It seems there are two caps on the DK board that have gone bad. The other seem fine. I wonder if these could have gone bad when the Sanyo smoked and maybe caused a spike across the video signal cable? I'm not hearing any audio either.

I could really use a pattern test generator right now just to verify the monitor is good.

The follow pic looks good in person. That's the vertical refresh and I also have the brightness turned up.

2 out of 3 power supplies I tried were bad. One was generating 16V instead of 24V on one of the outputs and the other was not generating 5V. The third power supply was good.

So now I'm able to see some output to the monitor which is good! So vertical collapse issue is definitely behind me. However, looks like I need to recap it yet again after I smoked it. Also, it seems new problems have a occurred with DK board. The Braze Highscore Save Kit has a self test and its indicating some RAM is bad. There were no errors before I smoked the Sanyo.

So I'm going to look at replacing these chips and see what happens. If problem persist then I'll probably replace the Z80 as well.

I talked to Scott from Braze Technologies and he stated the 40 on the screen is indicating that bit 6 (0x40 or b01000000) for the result is incorrect. I verified with the logic probe that bit 6 on the data path for all of these rams is tied to high. So likely the ram chips themselves are fine but possibly a problem with some buffer (e.g. ls245 at 6A) between them and the CPU.

Also, when I told Mike from Mike's arcade about this problem he immediately suggested that likely an ls245, etc. is bad and not the ram. It's kind of cool to see his experience on this as my debug is showing he is likely correct.

If you own a DK then I think getting one of these Highscore Save Kits from Braze would be a good idea to help diagnose problems.

I'm finally making some progress. I've been cutting pins and replacing chips along the data bus until I found the culprit. I now have to go back and fix some of the pins I cut on some of the ICs. Hopefully, this resolves the last of the video problems seen in the pic below. Although, I'm not hearing any sound. Hopefully, that's easy to figure out.

Desoldering ICs from a PCB is proving to be a total pain!! The pic below shows the wire patch I soldered in to hook pins 1 and 19 together on a new LS240 chip. When desoldering the bad LS240, I ended up ripping up a pad and trace that connected pin 1 to pin 19. Kind of sucks to make more work for yourself when fixing stuff.

Here is the chip soldered into the DK PCB at 4N. If I had a better soldering iron then I would have installed a socket first.

I know this is boring compared to the Cuphead thread. I'm pretty excited to see that one get done.

However, I fixed the last pin that I had cut (well temporarily) and "Hell yeah!!". It looks to be working!! I've come back from a completely dead Sanyo (smoked it) and dead DK board to get here!!

It's interesting that fixing the data bus problem fixed my wavey picture problem too. I thought I was going to have to recap the monitor again. I haven't made any adjustments yet to the monitor but the picture is solid.

The green wire in the pic below is the hack I did to fix pin. I did this before leaving to work this morning to see if this was the last problem. Just found a random wire and soldered it in. I'm going to replace the chip entirely.

omg. You got some serious skills and dedication. Honestly, 95% of the people here, especially me, aren't at that level. I would've replaced that monitor long ago. Good job, I'm sure it got frustrating at times.

It's kinda the unintended curse with these games once you start walking into the restoration territory. I found that once i had to get into CRT's, old power supplies, and actual arcade PCB's my knowledge and skillset needed to increase drastically to stay on top of new challenges. SOOOO worth it tho. Now in an effort to not have to deal with a computer running a jigsaw package of software (like on my MAME cab) i'd much rather deal with something that plugs right into an edge connector and turns on. Sadly this comes a cost, there are so many cool ideas i've had for custom cab projects that have fallen by the wayside in favour of resurrecting an actual classic like my Robotron, Sheriff, or my Ghouls n' Ghosts. In a way BYOAC was a gateway drug to get me over to KLOV. Next up is a life on Pinside to do a full shop of my 1978 Playmatic.

At any rate, I'm SERIOUSLY impressed with this build. I feel like i know the in's and out's of a Nintendo cab, and this one (much like a choice couple of others) is far and away one of the best i've ever seen.

omg. You got some serious skills and dedication. Honestly, 95% of the people here, especially me, aren't at that level. I would've replaced that monitor long ago. Good job, I'm sure it got frustrating at times.

Thanks leapinlew! My problems are not over yet. I've now lost sync with the monitor and have another problem to look at.

It's kinda the unintended curse with these games once you start walking into the restoration territory. I found that once i had to get into CRT's, old power supplies, and actual arcade PCB's my knowledge and skillset needed to increase drastically to stay on top of new challenges. SOOOO worth it tho. Now in an effort to not have to deal with a computer running a jigsaw package of software (like on my MAME cab) i'd much rather deal with something that plugs right into an edge connector and turns on. Sadly this comes a cost, there are so many cool ideas i've had for custom cab projects that have fallen by the wayside in favour of resurrecting an actual classic like my Robotron, Sheriff, or my Ghouls n' Ghosts. In a way BYOAC was a gateway drug to get me over to KLOV. Next up is a life on Pinside to do a full shop of my 1978 Playmatic.

At any rate, I'm SERIOUSLY impressed with this build. I feel like i know the in's and out's of a Nintendo cab, and this one (much like a choice couple of others) is far and away one of the best i've ever seen.

Wow! Thanks for that! This definitely helps me to keep moving forward. I originally started this project because I thought it would be cool to have an arcade game in the playroom for the kids. This has turned out to be way more involved then I was intending.

After my perfect result... I started seeing a wavey/shakey picture but its only become worse. I have now lost sync with DK board. I tried adjusting the h-hold on the Sanyo but it went into HV shutdown. Its back up again.

I'm going to replace VR1 and VR2 50K ohm pots on the DK PCB and hope this fixes it.

My big problem is that I don't know if the Sanyo is bad or if its DK PCB. I'm thinking DK right now.

I got a chance to test VR1 and VR2 pots on the DK board. VR1 seems shorted and VR2 works almost half way up to 16K ohms and then shorts out. So I'm optimistic that replacing these will solve my sync problem.

Yeah. I like it. No fear. I have done minor repairs and it is pretty cool to bring a dead game back to life. I have a Monaco GP that was working but now has issues. I am looking forward to diving into that monster PCB.

Yeah. I like it. No fear. I have done minor repairs and it is pretty cool to bring a dead game back to life. I have a Monaco GP that was working but now has issues. I am looking forward to diving into that monster PCB.

I replaced the LS245 chip at 6A on the DK board. This is the one I had broken a pin on when debugging my data bus problem. I broke pins to see which IC was causing the bus line to always be tied high instead of normally going into either a high impedance state or providing inputs to the bus.

I desoldered the broken chip without breaking a pad and ripping up a trace this time!

I soldered in a new chip and it looks good.

Its a near perfect solder job except for pin 19 where the soldered flowed to the back of the pin.

I was going to solder in a socket but I really wanted to be able to better see the solder joints after to make sure everything looks good.

Today, I went to a local gizmos store and bought a couple 50K pots for the DK board. I tested them right in the store to be sure they worked. They clearly weren't going to fit on the DK board but I didn't want to wait for new ones to be shipped to see if this is the last problem left.

Here is a pic of the pots that I temporarily attached to the DK board. I just soldered some black wires to the pot's leads and soldered the other ends to the PCB. Very hackey but they worked perfect!

With these installed my picture is back!!!

I'm cautiously happy right now. I'm hoping I can spend the weekend working on the cabinet to finish getting things ready to install this stuff.

Thanks to Buffett from Arcade Buffett (http://thearcadebuffett.com/) who helped me solve my last problem by suggesting that I focus a bit more on tweaking the v-hold knob. I almost took the Sanyo PCB out again to start figuring out why I was getting vertical scrolling. I had tweaked v-hold but apparently didn't play with it enough.

This weekend I bought signed bottle of Billy Mitchell's hot sauce at the Portland Retro Gaming Expo. Maybe it will help me finish this cabinet. I'm interested in trying this out.

Also, a guy I met from Craigslist dropped off a Radar Scope pcb that was converted to a DK. I'm going to convert it back to a Radar Scope for him. This should be a fun project. Should I blog this somewhere on these forums?

Here's the Radar Scope DK. The game itself seems like an unpolished version of the DK that I've been playing on my TKG4 board. Also, I've seen some intermittent video corruption and checked the VR1/VR2 pots and they are bad. So going to get board working before conversion.

Finally, starting to setup my arcade area in the playroom. DK will go right there! I'm hoping to finish in the next week or two!

I kinda find it funny that the significance of the Sky Skipper board in your picture is lost on most of the people on BYOAC. Well, mainly those who arn't also on KLOV, or huge Nintendo Nerds like me. Not a bad thing, it just goes to show how something so rare is really only interesting to certain people.

I kinda find it funny that the significance of the Sky Skipper board in your picture is lost on most of the people on BYOAC. Well, mainly those who arn't also on KLOV, or huge Nintendo Nerds like me. Not a bad thing, it just goes to show how something so rare is really only interesting to certain people.